Spent part of the day packing for my trip
tomorrow to Bolivia. I think I have everything. I am taking 1,400
strings. I started taking altitude sickness pills a week ago as we will
be landing at 14,900 feet and going downhill from there to the hotel in
La Paz. I will be gone 10 days and do not know if I will have email
contact or not.

We left for Bolivia from Oklahoma City, OK on
Thursday June 19th. Friday was a day to try to acclimate to the
altitude. Friday and Saturday we did a little shopping, a little
sightseeing and a lot of stopping to catch our breath. The airport is on
the Alto Plano (High plains above La Paz) at 14,000 feet or so. La Paz
is in a deep bowl that is at least 1,000 feet lower…as if 1,000 feet
makes a difference.

The first Indian bishop of the Methodist Church
died on Thursday night. They had the funeral on Friday so a number of us
went to the service. There is a close and long standing connection with
the Oklahoma Methodist church and Bolivia. The service was conducted by
an American pastor and much like services here. We then went to the
cemetery. It was a beautiful setting on an outcropping with mountains
all around. Almost every grave had fresh flowers. I was told that this
is very common and people do keep up things.

Sunday we took the bus up to El Alto to the
church we were working with. El Alto is on the Alto Plano and where
people from the country come to settle. It is very poor with few
services. The church was held in the home of a widow who is letting the
church use it. She lives in the back part of the compound.

As part of the service, we walked to the field
where we were going to start the church. Everyone picked up a stone and
the foundation was started with a hole and the stones placed in like the
memorial the Israelites made at the Jordan River. It was quite moving.
We walked back to the church for the rest of the service and lunch.

Lunch was prepared by a couple of women who
cooked for us each weekday. Extra things were brought in by the
congregation. Methodists do like the pot luck. We had potatoes that were
smaller than eggs. Some were fresh white potatoes boiled, some were
black. These were the freeze dried ones that they prepare for storage.
We also had rice, beans and some chicken; and of course big bottles of
orange pop and 10 plastic glasses. When someone finished with theirs,
someone else got it. God protect us, please.

We recognized some of the potatoes as being
like ones lying on the Church field drying out. They were hastily
gathered up when the foundation was started. Seven of the team members
worked on the foundation and five of us worked with the Bible School.
After we finished with the Bible School, we went over and helped move
rocks, tie up rebar, and whatever we could do.

After digging for 3/4 of the first day on the
foundation, one of the men asked what it would cost to have a back hoe
come in. They gasped and said that it would be over 700 B’s…about $100.
He gave the money and they had the foundation dug by the next morning.
It ended up being about $80 and allowed the team to finish so much more
of the work.

Bible school started with about 20 on Monday
and ended with about 45 on Friday. Everyone had a good time and they
loved the string. We would start with some string things, put them away
for later, and have lessons and crafts, then finish with some more
strings that went along with the lessons.

Friday, our last day on the Alto Plano, we
stopped at noon and ate lunch. Then the people wanted to have a “Thank
You” ceremony for us. It was very special. They planned it and had
songs…many local songs played on ancient instruments. They were in the
traditional Bolivian dress. Pop with the “10” glasses passed around and
then there were the “Thank You’s”. They gave a plaque and a couple of
shawls, and dressed many of the team up in local dress for pictures.

Then the dancing began. Each grabbed one of us
and started to dance. Dancing at 14,000 feet is quite a lot of work. I
was exhausted after a very short time, but my partner would not quit. We
then did a group circle dance and I was finally able to sneak back to a
bench. What good hearted people.

Sarah Bodenstein, a pastor at Chapel Hill in
OKC loved the strings and went on a tear to learn everything she could.
She is going to offer a six week class at the church for some of the
leaders to use in various ways. It was fun to teach her the heart figure
and then watch her teach the heart to the youth pastor, Donny, and then
see him teach his wife. It just gets passed along.

The next Saturday we went on a bus tour of some
of the ruins at Tiwanaku and stopped at Moon Valley, a place with
fantastic rock formations. We were near Lake Tittacaca but did not go
the rest of the way to see it.

I made several contacts and they want me to
come back for a month or two to go to a number of villages on the Alto
Plano and also in the jungle region. I would be traveling by myself and
need to perfect my Spanish. Maybe that will happen next year.

We stayed in a hotel in La Paz that was like an
old Holiday Inn. Nice and clean but not fancy. Food in the restaurants
was very good and safe. It was also very inexpensive; a steak dinner
with all the trimmings for $6.00. It is a tough life I lead.

We returned on June 29th. Our plane from La Paz
went to San Paulo and our seats and luggage were checked for drugs; then
on to Miami. Our plane was late leaving Miami and we only had about 15
minutes to get from our gate in Dallas to another terminal. American
Airlines had a gate agent there who took us down the outside steps to a
bus that took us to the other gate and in the back way. We made it and
caught our flight to OKC.

I got home to Lawton about 1:00am on the 30th
and had to be back in Norman, OK later in the day for a booking.